Irritating features you'ld like to turn off !

[STEVENSON-KAATSCH]

I am a simple soul. I don't use my iPad to do gaming, run my life or program fuel maps on racing cars. I send emails to my few friends. I look at eBay and sometimes bid on stuff. I write chapters for my novel and also add my opinion to a few forum to which I have an interest.
My iPad has been given new and extremely irritating new features of late, which if it could be done, I would switch off. I detest predictive text. Unless I physically make an action to substitute my spelling, I want it to remain as I have typed it. Also, when I swipe the page to scroll through long lists of information, I do not want the page to go grey and demand I adjust some feature or another, neither do I want to consult a notional diary that my life is too interesting to ever want to waste time pigging about with. I just want what I have on the wretched screen, nothing else.
One can imagine the air-headed, other-worldly techno-nerds in Cupertino or wherever they lurk, trying to think up ever more ways to make their customers lives more 'integrated' with the blooming technology. All I want is an 'off' switch to turn their stupid ideas off, and let me rule my life my own way.
Am I a lone voice in my own silly little world, or are there others with their own axes to grind ? I also wonder if those self-same techno-geeks have come up with that most usful of devices, a program that can dredge the web for product feedback such as my current missive ? In trying to join the official Apple forum, I was told I needed an unrelated email address in order to proceed. It was then that I knew for certain that they had lost the plot.... The old boss (God rest his soul) would never have stood for such nonsense.

 

[twerppoet]

The predictive text can be turned off, along with auto-correct and other keyboard features in Settings > General > Keyboards. I like predictive text. It saves me a bit of typing, which I admit is far more valuable on the iPhone than the iPad. I do turn off auto-correct, but leave Check Spelling on. I want to know when the iPad thinks I've misspelled a word, just not for it to replace it on it's own.

I have no idea what you are talking about with the page going gray and demanding adjustments. Unless you are talking about Notification Center; in which case just avoid scrolling down from the very top edge of the screen. As long as you don't touch the top edge, swiping shouldn't activate Notification Center.

As for the rest, lets just say I disagree. While not all of Apple's ideas are the best, they do need to keep having them and trying them. I don't want a static never improving iOS. If for no other reason than because it would mean the death of iOS as the market and the majority of consumers move on.

As for the ability to shut things off, most features can be shut off. Like the keyboard features you don't like. Other's integral to the the way iOS works now, at least for the majority of people, and don't really get in the way when you don't need them (in my opinion).

Still trying to figure out the gray page thing. I wondering if it isn't app specific rather than a system feature.

 

[STEVENSON-KAATSCH]

The grey screen thing is when that wretched thing pops up from the bottom. It only needs to be operative from a ghosted tab, not the whole bottom of the screen, mucking up other actions. Ditto the drop-down calendar thing, the point of which is nonexistent in my dull little life.

 

[J. A.]

The grey screen thing is when that wretched thing pops up from the bottom. It only needs to be operative from a ghosted tab, not the whole bottom of the screen, mucking up other actions. Ditto the drop-down calendar thing, the point of which is nonexistent in my dull little life.

That grey screen thing is Control Center, when you swipe it up from the bottom, or Notification Center, when swiped down from the top. It's colour is depending on your homescreen wallpaper and what you choose in Settings - General - Accessibility - Increase Contrast.

An example:
When you choose a bright wallpaper, and disable "Reduce Transparency", one of the features in "Increase Contrast", the wallpaper will shine through Control Center, making it less grey than with a dark wallpaper, and it will be even darker, when you also enable "Reduce Transparency".

You'll have to try the features there to find out what you prefer, including using different wallpapers.

Btw: Notification Center is not only about Calendar alerts, you can also add weather forecasts and apps. Here's a list of those which show up in my Noticifation Center/Today view, when I enable them on my iPad:

 

[LannyC]

I, too, had no use for the Notifications pull-down...until I discovered tinyCalc:

I do use the Control Center. I've gotten used to avoiding the swipes that display these features when I don't need them.

However, it does seem like iOS 8 has made the sensitive area at the bottom of the screen larger, triggering more unwanted Control Centers.

 

[twerppoet]

The Control Center can be partially disabled. You can turn off the ability to activate it from the Lock Screen, or from within apps; leaving you with only the ability to pull it up from a home screen (where scrolling is not an issue).

Settings > Control Center.